SR4: Seattle Knights
=Shadowrun, 4th Edition: Seattle Knights= A game of Shadowrun, 4th Edition, being GM'd by User:ShadowDragon8685. The game takes place over IRC, on irc.sorcery.net in #Shadowrun, beginning (nominally) at 10:30 AM on Sundays. The game is currently open for recruitment; present oneself in the channel, or contact the GM via AIM (ShadowDragon8685) or email (ShadowDragon8685@gmail.com). Introduction It is the year 2072. Better than half a century after the Awakening and the rise of corporate sovereignty, it is a time of great action and upheavals. Nations struggle to reassert their dominance and relevancy in a world dominated by the corporate superpowers they themselves created. Once-proud nations have fractured and balkanized, and out of the fractured ruins arose Dragons and Megacorporations and new nations alike. But you know that already, because you're in Seattle. One of the truest world hubs, Seattle is effectively a colony of the United Canadian & American States, entirely engulfed in the Salish-Shidhe territory and within easy reach of half a dozen other nations, this city is home to one of the largest, most diverse confluences of extraterritorial corporate enclaves in the world, with all the major players and most of the minor ones having some kind of presence. A city which is full of crime and danger; and for those who thrive on both, opportunity for adventure and enrichment. So, whether you are here to stay, or passing through on your way to parts unknown, welcome to Seattle, chummer. It isn't safer here. Spammy Summary from Odd_Canuck Changes from Canon Owing to the GM's misconceptions which made it into actual gameplay, the California Free State is quite different from its canon depictions. In this timeline, the hundreds of thousands of UCAS troops who were stationed in California did not pull out and leave people they had known all of their lives at the mercy of foreign invaders, they defected en masse. As a result, when the invasions came, the people of California hit back like a hammer. They still lost the territory that the normal history says they lost, but after Hestaby's intervention securing their northern border, they geared up to push back south, while still making the boneheaded move to appeal to Japan for help, primarily as a way of spurning the UCAS. Japan did take San Fransisco and the surrounding areas, but the CalFree military pushed back Aztlan and the Pueblo Corporate Council, and then spent years smuggling weapons and materiel to the dissidants in the "Protectorate of California" before they were finally well-armed enough (and convinced that Saito was genuinely rogue,) to move back in and crush General Saito's forces, liberating San Fransisco and its surrounding territory. As a result, California is one of the stronger free nations in the world, with a large military-industrial complex, a standing army, air force, and a reasonably powerful green-water navy that nobody really wants to cross. They don't sell land for extraterritorial purposes, they only lease it, and the terms of the leases they issue enforce the same environmental regulations on leased territory as elsewhere, though in all other respects said territory is what one would expect from normal extraterritorial AAA-mega property. Characters Please, maintain a character sheet on Myth-Weavers. It's not a bad idea to keep a backup elsewhere, but I'd like to be able to access it at all times. Just select 'Shadowrun' and boom, you've got a beautiful template to work with. Why should I reinvent the wheel? Please, provide links to your character sheets below, unless for some reason you mind the sheet being public. What's Their Faces ! - Scathach Dahak's Characters - Dahak/Darkone Igamaki Kotaro, Murder-Machine - AdamantGlassOrchid Cascade - September Brick - Halinn Cass - Aidan Withdrawn characters and players Bom and others -Odd_Canuck. Logs Once gameplay begins, logs of gameplay sessions will be made and stored here for posterity's sake. House Rules Chargen *Character Generation takes place on a 400 Pt. Buy, as usual. **New characters come in with some Karma under their belt; find the character with the lowest amount of Karma currently playing, and match their Karma. *Instead of getting (Logic + Intuition)x3 Knowledge Skills, you get (Logic + Intuition)x5 Knowledge skills, and may buy up to (Logic + Intuition)x5 more knowledge skills with Build Points. **Knowledge Skills cost 1BP each, instead of 2. **Getting a Language skill up to 5 is as good as speaking it fluently; you can hold complicated conversations with a native speaker without any rolls whatsoever. Consequently, it's up to you whether to list it as another native language, or just have spent a lot of time learning it. *Skill Groups now cost 8 BP per group instead of 10 BP. **Please try to remember to take some points in "Everyday" skills like fistfighting, driving a car, using a computer, knowing your way around town, knowing the kind of obscura that people in an information-age society would know, and so forth and so on. Come on, you have to live in Seattle, and you have to have some kind of hobby or something you do when you're not commiting felonies for SoyBeer money. *Starting money: **Assume a roll of 6 on the first dice you roll for your lifestyle, and a mathematically-average roll for every dice thereafter; IE, 3.5. So someone whose Lifestyle hits into the Luxury range would have (6+(3.5x3))x1000 = 16,500 nuyen on-hand, while someone living completely on the street would have only 60 nuyen on hand. **But wait, that's not all. What about having money left over from your gear? Any money you purchased with BP and did not spend during character creation is yours to keep in whatever form you desire, whether certified credsticks, bearer bonds, paper currency, or what-have-you. You can spend additional BP to have additional cash on-hand if you'd prefer. *Starting Contacts: **Everyone gets Charisma x2 points of free Connections. Nobody knows nobody - other than the folks who were Hung Out to Dry. **The Hung Out to Dry drawback only applies at character creation - you can't have any Contacts. It doesn't mean that afterward, people will refuse to talk to you, it just means that you start your (new?) life in Seattle's shadows without the benefit of knowing anyone. Rules Tweaks Stunting Extra dice will be awarded to characters who describe their actions in colorful, inventive ways. This will follow the Stunt system as generally understood by an Exalted player: a mildly interesting stunt is worth one extra die, a good, cinematic stunt is worth two, and anything which drops the GM's jaw to the floor is worth three dice. In addition, doing anything that gets one a three-die stunt gives the player their choice of Karma or restoring an Edge. Spending Edge Edge can be spent as follows: *A point of Edge spent can negate all damage inflicted by a single attack, if declared before damage for that attack is rolled (go ahead and interrupt me). *A point of Permanent Edge can be burned on your action to allow your character to escape from a scene completely and in exactly the same shape they were in. *Edge spent can buy you dice to roll as per normal, or you can play it safe and convert them into automatic successes at a three-to-one ratio, rounding the remainder up. (IE, Edge 1-3 = 1 hit, Edge 4-6 = 2 hits, Edge 7 = 3 hits.) *Edge may be spent to reduce an Extended Test interval by half. The reduced interval remains in effect for the duration of the Extended Test. The interval may only be reduced on any given test once. All other normal Edge uses (re-rolls, invoking the Hand of God, etcetera,) remain in effect. Armor Layering Anyone can wear two distinct pieces of wearable armor (ex. An armored vest under non-protective clothing and a leather jacket,) without penalty, irregardless of their Body stat, or one full set of 'serious' armor (ex. SWAT armor) without penalty. The Rule of Six As in previous editions of Shadowrun, the Rule of Six applies to all dice rolls. This rule only applies to Prime Runner characters and the player characters, but it does apply to Spirits/Sprites and other beings summoned up to act on behalf of characters who could use the Rule of 6 themselves. Attribute Only Tests *There will always be an applicable skill. You may wish to invest in Athletics, as it will likely be the skill used Composure Tests Any time any piece of text calls for the character to control themselves with a roll of two randomly-combined attributes (Such as the way Prejudiced calls for Intuition + Willpower for some strange reason,) the player may choose to make a Composure test (Willpower + Charisma) or the random combination, at their preference. Skill Group Changes *Pilot Groundcraft, Pilot Watercraft, and Gunnery can now be taken as the Basic Piloting skill group. *Pilot Aircraft, Pilot Aerospace, and Pilot Anthroform can now be taken as the Advanced Piloting skill group. *Pilot Exotic Vehicles can be taken as a skill group encompassing all imaginable Exotic Vehicles. Karmic Debts Karmic Debts are no longer a sucking void from which your character will never last long enough to escape. When a Karmic Debt is present, you are only obliged to pay 1/2 of your Karmic income per-session to service the debt. In addition, other sources of Karma award (objective awards, making-the-GM-laugh awards, 3-Die Stunt awards, and anything else which is not your karma-per-session award) are never obliged to be spent servicing the Karmic debt. You may, however, choose to spend any and all Karma at your disposal to service the debt. Karma for Cash, Cash for Karma Some character types require Karma in massive amounts and care little about their money, while for other characters the inverse is true. Thus the game may be frustrating to characters who find themselves with a surplus of the resource they can't really put to use, and a dearth of the resource they require. Therefor, a character who finds himself with an excess of Karma and a dearth of money, or vice-versa, can spend one to acquire the other at the following rates: *1 Karma may be spent to acquire 1,500 nuyen *2,000 nuyen may be spent to acquire 1 Karma. This exchange may only be made during down-time, not in the middle of a run, and it does occupy some of the character's time: to swap Cash for Karma, one must be doing something positive in the world, such as donating money to Charity or spending it directly on giving people things they need, and to swap Karma for Cash, one must be doing something selfish, such as gambling, or gouging people on side-jobs. Exotic Weapons Unless a weapon's mode of operation or behavior is truly exotic, it is not exotic. A dart pistol and a dart rifle work just like a regular pistol or rifle, and consequently use the same skills; a laser rifle is shouldered and fired just like a regular rifle, etcetera. Combat Explosive Weapon, including Scatter Explosive weapons don't tend to scatter nearly as much as some role-playing game books would have you believe - this makes them very unsafe for the average Shadowrunner to face in his opposition, and very unsafe for society at large in the hands of the average Shadowrunner. This is because explosive attacks are usually attacks against an area, not a person. The threshold to hit an area is only 1, and that 1 counts as a net hit for reducing scatter. However, if you need to get away from an explosive, you still can; by taking a Full Defense action as a reaction, anyone who would be affected by the explosion can roll Reaction + Dodge + Gymnastics (if they have any,) to increase their effective range from the explosive by one meter per net hit, in addition to any actual distance they may manage to put between themselves and it during the course of their movement in the combat turn (if a timed explosive is the source of their woe.) If the attack was impact-fused, they do not get to put any distance between themselves and the explosive, and only have their own ability to React and Dodge out of the way to fall back upon. As an alternative, an attack with such a weapon may be aimed at someone, in which case they are rolling standard defense against an attack to determine if it scatters away from them or not. If the attack is wholly successful (point-blank,) the attack additionally deals damage as if it were a hurled brick. Everyone else in the area is rolling to get away from the man being beaned with a grenade. *Standard Grenades scatter 2d6 meters -1 per net hit. If they are impact-fused, they go off immediately, and do not scatter unless the attack was a miss, or a glitch. *Aerodynamic Grenades scatter 1d6-meters -2 per net hit. If they are impact-fused, they go off immediately, and do not scatter unless the attack was a miss, or a glitch. *Grenade launchers are by default impact-fused, and unless otherwise modified, they do not scatter unless the attack was a miss or a glitch. They scatter 3d6 meters, -2 per net hit. *Rocket launchers are exclusively impact weapons, and they scatter 4d6 meters -4 per net hit. *Missiles are guided weapons, and they do not scatter except on a miss or a glitch, in which case they scatter 4d6 meters -4 per net hit, -Sensor Rating in meters. *Airburst attacks do not scatter except on a miss or a glitch, in which case they scatter 2d6 meters -2 per net hit, -Sensor rating in meters. In the event of a critical glitch, unmitigated scatter is usually the worst imaginable thing, which is what will happen. Most grenades are fused to go off three seconds after the spoon is released - that is, on the initiative pass in which the grenade was hurled, in the next combat turn. Simple physical-or-chemical-reaction-fused grenades, as in the ancient days, have had this period of time determined when the grenade was manufactured, and changing this fusing time is usually more trouble and more dangerous than it is worth, requiring an Armorer (Explosives) test to successfully remove the fuse (glitches set off the fuse and make it detonate after its standard time has passed; a critical glitch sets the explosive off in the armorer's hands,) and another one (plus a Chemistry test) to re-make the fuse and recombine it with the grenade (same consequences on any glitches.) They are, however, cheap and plentiful, and ballsy characters may choose to release the spoon and 'cook' the grenade before throwing it on a future initiative pass; consequences of a glitch being that the grenade was thrown too late and explodes mid-way between its final destination and the thrower, and you can imagine what the consequences of a critical glitch are. Slightly-more-advanced, computer-detonated grenades may have their timers set in seconds by the person holding them, from 1 to effectively any number, effectively detonating on any future initiative pass the thrower cares to name, whether it's next pass or in sixty minutes, as a booby-trap. Page 155 Vehicle Defense System Instead of adding dice to the vehicle's own defense roll: Make the vehicle's own Dodge roll (if it is going to/capable of doing so,) then proceed to the vehicle defense system. A vehicle defense system grants a vehicle targeted with a missile or rocket attack the opportunity to shoot down the incoming missile. The vehicle's targeting computer makes a Pilot/Sensor + Gunnery roll to engage the missile target. Missiles and rockets have no damage resistance; the threshold for the attack is the number of net hits the shooter has remaining after the vehicle dodge roll, if any. If the defense system receives more hits than the attacker has, the attack is shot down spectacularly. If not, then the attack goes through, and proceed to damage resolution as normal. Note that unless the missile attack originates from so far away that it will require more than one combat turn to reach the target (such as a beyond visual range attack from a cruise missile,) Active Sensor Targeting may not be used to defend against the missile. Automatic weapons and lasers are the only effective missile defense weapons. Automatics such as regular machine guns are not preferred, however; most military designers agree that high-Velocity automatics are the bare minimum you need for true interception. *Automatic weapons receive a -2 malus. *High-Velocity Automatic Weapons receive no penalty. *Miniguns receive a +2 bonus. They use 20 rounds per interception, however. *Lasers receive a +4 bonus. A Rigger Jumped-In to the vehicle/gun mount in question may use Gunnery + Sensor as a Reaction, giving up their next action to use their Gunnery in lieu of the targeting autosoft, or they may have dedicated their present action to watching for attacks, in which case they recieve a +2 bonus on their attack rolls. A Rigger who is not Jumped-In but is controlling the weapon system remotely may not do so unless the attack will take more than one combat turn to reach the target. Defending other vehicles (as in Area Defense Mode) is more complex, as for good interception, the vehicle they wish to defend must be within the weapon's arc and within Short range. At any other range, the weapon range penalties apply. If more than one vehicle is defending against the same missile attack, all may make their rolls, but they do not reduce the incoming attack's threshold cumulatively; an interception either succeeds, in which case the attack fails, or the interception failed to hit the target. It is rumored that there are missiles out there in the world which intentionally "swirl" or "jink" to add to the interception threshold of a missile defense system, but if there are, such things are surely in the hands of militaries alone. Essence and Special Attributes This is a big change from the Rules as Written. All characters who are Awakened - which is here taken to mean any character with a Magic or Resonance score - possess a special attribute, Magic or Resonance. These attributes can be raised like any other, but unlike others, they can fall if the attribute which defines their maximum value - Essence - falls below their current value. *The Maximum Magic score a character may possess is her Essence + Initiation Grade *The Maximum Resonance score a character may possess is her Essence + Submersion Grade. **Round Essence down to the nearest whole number. Essence loss - from augmentation or any other source - has no direct impact whatsoever on Magic or Resonance. A character possessing an Awakened attribute score can only lose dots in that score if their Maximum falls below their current score. Even then, the trait is not lost completely, merely capped at the current effective maximum. Raising the cap restores lost value, in part or in whole. For example, if Tim the Magician has Essence 6, Magic 6, and Initiation Grade 0, and NeoNET gives him some surprise cyberware that reduces his maximum Magic to 4, he has Essence 4, Magic 6(4) and Initiation Grade 0. For all magical intents and purposes, his Magic has been reduced to 4. If Tim decides to Initiate and earn Initiation Grade 1, his Maximum Magic (Essence + Initiation Grade) raised up to 5. Tim now has Magic 6(5) and for all magical intents and purposes, his Magic has become 5. He does not need to pay Karma or undertake any training to function as if he had Magic 5, because he already has Magic 6 - it's just been capped by his Essence loss, and the cap has been raised. Simply removing augmentation does not restore Essence, however, as per usual; an Essence Hole remains. However, if Tim changes his Augmentation situation enough to bring the amount of Essence his augmentations are occupying to or above 5.0, and then receives the Rejuvenation gene therapy to restore his actual Essence score to or above 5.0, his maximum Magic will rise along with it, bringing his Magic score back to 6. It may help, then, for characters with an Essence hole to track their Essence by listing the causes of their lost Essence as Cybernetic Augmentation, Bioware Augmentation, Essence Hole (created from the removal of Augmentations) and Other (such as Energy Drain or addiction-burnout.) To illustrate an extreme example, Hard Lyfe is a Shadowrunner who's seen and done just about everything. He has Bio, he has Cyber, he's had some of it removed. He's had some blood drained by a vampire, and he suffered from a Tempo addiction. Hard Lyfe has 1 point of Essence currently being used by his Cyberware, and 1 point (which only counts as .5 points) of Bioware. He used to have 1.5 points of cyber, but upgrades in ware grade reduced him to 1 even. He's been smacked by Energy Drain (Essence) for 1 point of Essence, and his Tempo addiction cost him another point. Essence 2.0 (Cyber 1, Bio 0.5, Hole 0.5, Other 2) Assuming that Hard Lyfe pulled off a huge victory for Universal Omnitech and was given as much rejuvenation as he could want in return, he could, over the course of 25 months, restore the point of Essence lost to Energy Drain, the point lost to Tempo, and the half-point of Essence Hole, after which his Essence situation would look like this: Essence 4.5 (Cyber 1, Bio 0.5) Much better, if he were Awakened. Since he's not, it doesn't really matter to him, except that it makes him much easier for his wizard chummer to patch up. Character Advancement Characters can advance a skill in their time off, around their usual activities, in a number of weeks equal to half the intended rank for the skill, round up. It's presumed that they're practicing in and around their usual activities once they've spent the Karma and begun training, and they can maintain up to Intuition skills being trained at once. Only a drastic situation can prevent this - such as being incarcerated by the Star generally prevents one from practicing one's firearm skills. If a character's advancement is halted, he can wait until he is able to begin again and resume where he left off, or give up the advancement in-progress and regain the Karma he spent on it, perhaps to begin training a skill more suitable to the environment at hand. Sometimes, that isn't enough. Sometimes, a character needs immediate competency. By spending a point of Edge, a character can spend the appropriate amount of Karma and gain his new point(s) of skill immediately, even adding to any dice rolls being made during the action in which the player decides his character absolutely must have a sudden epiphany. Cyberware *''Orientation System'' (Augmentation.) It does exist, but buyer beware: any commlink includes this thing's primary functions, and that includes implanted commlinks. This is probably only for extreme hardcore wilderness nuts, as special forces are likely to have implanted commlinks instead. *Implanted Commlink (SR4A) The implanted commlink is an accessable shell somewhere near the surface of the character's head that has DNI interfaces down into the brain. The actual commlink's components are irrelevant to the cyberware's Essence cost (or Nuyen cost, for that matter; grade elevations only affect the base cost of the unit.) This means that the commlink can receive physical upgrades (or complete component replacements) without affecting the Essence cost of the user - though it will still require a Shadow Clinic with an expert cybersurgeon trained in electronics to do, recovery time will be negligible (a few days at most). Aidan's campaign houserules Watcher Spirits use summoner's Magic in place of Force for Perception, Assensing and Search Empathy Sensor Software does not exist. SINs are a threshhold, instead of an opposed test. A more intense search might warrant an extended text. From ShadowDragon8685's Rules Tweaks: Spending Edge, Skill Group Changes, Karmic Debts, Karma for Cash (and reverse), Exotic Weapons, Essence and Special Attributes 950 karma, you may initiate/submerge with this No more than 4 Initiations/Submersions. No group discounts, run ordeals by me first. 50% discount on contacts (Log+Int)*6 free karma for knowledge/language skills You may spend up to 200 karma on money Maximum availability at chargen is raised to 20 You may begin play with betaware You have 7 full days of prep time for binding spirits, registering sprites and similar activities before game start. SIN's cost 20% more than normal. This is instead of having to purchase separate licenses for gear. (Extremely unusual gear may require an individual license, but I'll make this clear if it's going to come up.) Functionally unlimited ammo is included with a lifestyle of Medium or better. This does not include ammo that has an availability greater than 12, nor does it include exotic ammunition (Blowgun darts, mortar rounds, etc.). Contact vector is removed from most toxins. (*list of exceptions pending, expect it to mostly be nerve agents*) Swap echo reduces sustaining penalties by half submersion level, can be taken twice (instead of standard -1 per time taken) Category:Shadowrun Category:Seattle Knights